Citizens initiatives: Get fired up about climate change

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You’re spot on: Initiatives are “powerful stuff.” They are also hard work. In this digital age, it seems a little quaint and old-fashioned to have to stop far more than 260,000 people on the street and ask them to write their names on bits of paper.

Having successfully avoided signature gatherers for decades, I now find myself in the odd position of volunteering to stand in farmers markets trying to collect signatures for I-1631 — the clean-energy initiative endorsed by an unusually broad coalition of more than 100 organizations. It’s sad that hundreds of volunteers across the state are having to do the heavy lifting that we taxpayers pay our elected representatives to do. The Legislature has dismally failed to take action on climate change. The last and best hope are the voters themselves.

As the editorial states, let the voters decide if a ballot measure is warranted. Sign I-1631 so this very important issue is on the ballot in the fall, and the voters can then vote.